June The Old Print Works Harp Recital by Eleanor Turner and students featuring Liz Johnson's Diptera for diatonic harp - more details coming soon....

2019 events so far...

16th May BBC Radio 3 Breakfast - live broadcast of Agnus Dei by Liz Johnson sung by the banks of the River Severn by Severn Voices, conducted by William Coleman and introduced by Petroc Trelawny.

5th May Royal Birmingham Conservatoire The Lab 6pmScintillaLab

Liz and the Scintilla team gratefully acknowledge support from PRS for Music Foundation

A first glimpse into Scintilla Liz Johnson's collaboration with choreographer/dancer Dane Hurst, clarinettist Jack McNeill and digital artist FormUls as part of Sound and Music's New Voices Artist Development scheme. Work-in-progress supported by Sound and Music, RVW Trust and PRSF. Also featuring MNDMTH by Stuart Brown

Support Liz's work by becoming one of her Patrons of the Arts. Gold (£1000), Silver (£250) and Bronze (£50) Patrons will support Liz's current composing projects and the artists she works with. Visit the online shop to find out more!

Liz Johnson's current projects for 2019/20 that need your support!

Scintilla for dancer, clarinettist and live electronics multidisciplinary work weaving dance, poetry, theatre and music

Congratulations to our New Voices 2018! These fifteen are creating work across a very broad range of musical genres but they share a deep commitment to critical engagement with their practice. All fifteen New Voices want to make changes to, and effect development within, their work. They are learners who cultivate their craft and we hope to be worthy of the trust they have placed in us to work alongside them.

#SaMNewVoices

New Voices is Sound and Music's major Composer Development programme, lasting 18 months with an annual intake.

Moon Landings...

If you are looking for music to celebrate the lunar landings in 2019 Moon Incantations for mixed choir by Liz Johnson sets 5 lists of moon features: the craters and seas of the moon plus a cheesy number (a list of cheeses) and more...

August 3rd: 12:30pm, Tuckamore Music Festival, St John's, Newfoundland. The Suite has been described as "… breathtaking" (Divine Art) and "…stunning … The music explores a vast canvas of melody, harmonics and other string effects…To me, this suite is Johnson's masterpiece. It is not too much to say that it takes its place beside Bach, Britten and Ligeti"

REVIEWSounds Like Now July 2017 'Paintings and poetry in Liz Johnson's Intricate Web' by Tim Rutherford-Johnson

REVIEW Tonality Systems Press An extended essay exploring Liz Johnson's String Quartets, with a focus on her Fourth Quartet, a setting of Kathleen Jamie's Sky-burial for string quartet and voice.

'I was immediately hooked... [this] is a significant body of English music for string quartet. This essay will discuss Liz Johnson's four string quartets, in particular a most ambitious and striking work for soprano and quartet...expressing the richest musical message.'

ONE FRIDAY Award Liz Johnson's Colwall Requiem for Aleppo was awarded first prize in the 'One Friday' national competition 2017

Sunday 11th December 2016 Our group Vantage Points: composer Liz Johnson, artist Fion Gunn and choreographer Sarah Rubidge performed 'We're all in the same boat'. We walked, danced and sang our way across Millennium Bridge, London, with boats of all shapes and sizes, including a 'boat-shoe' created and worn by Fion Gunn, in support of refugees forced to flee their homes, finishing outside the Tate Modern. Join us if you can or like/share the FB page https://www.facebook.com/allinthesameboat/

Watch the short film of our walk here with Liz's song A (refugee) Sailor's Life

Liz Johnson's new carol Ipsum Regem for SATTB will feature in this December's Christmas Music by Candlelight in Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, Leicester, Hereford, Hagley, London and Birmingham.

Triptych I premiere now available on Youtube

Audience response...

'I found the evening utterly inspiring. The fusion of art and music was perfect. Lucy was able to take flight through the improvisatory quality of her playing to match the expressive lines that you had both created. It was deeply moving.......unforgettable. Thank you both for your beautiful work.'

Penny Vere, audience member

October 5th 2016 Insights into Inspiration

Elmslie House, 8, The Avenue, Malvern 7.30pm

Triptych I is a new work for unaccompanied baroque violin by Liz Johnson, performed by renowned Baroque specialist Lucy Russell.

Inspired by the artwork of Dora Williams, the music juxtaposes baroque dance and decorative ornamentation with contemporary lines and gestures.

Click here to see a short film about the composing process made by Steve Parkinson.

August 2016 Triptych I for Baroque violin - Liz Johnson

Lucy Russell and I have been collaborating on a new work inspired by artist Dora Williams' paintingTriptych - a scarred series. The music incorporates elements of Baroque ornamentation and extemporisation set in a contemporary framework.

On Weds 5th October 2016, 7.30pm the piece will be premiered by Lucy at Elmslie House, Malvern, along with a discussion with Liz about the composing of the music.

The IAWM Search for New Music 2016 Gideon Prize has been awarded to Liz Johnson for her fourth string quartet Sky-burial for voice and string quartet. Written in 2005 the piece is a single movement lasting 28 minutes, setting the evocative poem by Kathleen Jamie. A new recording of Sky-burial by the Fitzwilliam String Quartet with singer Loré Lixenberg will be released next April on the Métier label.

Dr K Sextet conducted by Ewan Campbell Live Premiere Recording at Club Inegales, January 22nd 2015

Iridaceae Kings Place, 4pm Sunday 19th January 2014

Iridaceae by Liz Johnson for solo violin and live electronics performed by Marcus Barcham-Stevens in a concert that fuses Jazz, Classical, Folk, and electronic music.

This event is built around three current Fitzwilliam Quartet recording projects, headed by the launch of a new disc of works by Steinmetz himself for string quartet, jazz violin, and soprano saxophone.

When an extra angel appears in the foyer of the opera house the management are thrown into confusion, especially when it begins to become apparent that this is no ordinary angel. One man must take action to save the theatre, the audience, the earth - not to mention the heavens - from the angel in the foyer. Addressing the issues of individual action and personal responsibility, this new opera by Liz Johnson and Rosalind Haslett is a companion piece to Like Bedford's Seven Angels.

Liz Johnson's Turn of the Moon for saxophone quartet featured in Rome, Italy

Donne In Musica Works for Saxophone Quartet

The 10 concerts planned with the SAXODIA QUARTET of the Antonia Scontrino Conservatory, Trapani, will take place in Rome between the 8th and 14th June. The works, chosen by international panel, will be performed in an "outreach" programme for the genral public of all ages and is the first of its kind in Italy - we are taking the contemporary works to schools, social centres, a library, a park and a centre for political refugees in the same quarter of Rome, Municipio XVIII, Roma Aurelia

Flotilla's programmes include works by major international and British composers including Elliott Carter, Jonathan Dove, Edward McGuire, and William Sweeney. Committed to developing a distinctive repertoire, the group has presented the first performances and recordings of several works, including Paul Evernden's Three Songs for Sajmište and Liz Johnson's Hildegard Reflections.